LOCAL WEB USERS LEAN CONSERVATIVE

In our weekly Web poll last week, users of semissourian. com overwhelmingly castigated the new TV show, "Temptation Island." Nearly four in five of the more than 300 respondents called the show morally repugnant. The rest said things like they believed it was "all in good fun" or that they had "no opinion."

The poll question prompted at least one person to send me an e-mail:

"I visit the Missourian Web site almost daily and always participate in your online polls. I noticed that this week's was about the Fox show 'Temptation Island,' which to no surprise was found to be overwhelmingly 'morally repugnant' (whatever that means) by a mostly politically right-leaning Southeast Missouri. I have a theory: I would like to see an identical poll in the middle of February after the new XFL league begins on NBC. My theory is that even with all the unnecessary violence, live language and revealing clothing of the cheerleaders, I have a feeling the show will be thought of as 'All in good fun' by the people of Southeast Missouri. I think this could be an interesting look at the mindset of people in our area. I thank you in advance for any consideration of this idea."

I thought the suggestion was an interesting one, and we will follow up with a question about the XFL in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I encourage anyone and everyone to e-mail me suggestions about poll questions. We try to make the questions accessible to the largest number of potential respondents by not focusing on purely parochial issues. If you have ideas for questions, let them fly to: jrust@semissourian.com.

Regarding cultural norms and politics in Southeast Missouri, an interesting trend is beginning to emerge in the polls conducted on semissourian.com. Setting aside the question about "Temptation Island," because it doesn't easily translate to party affinities, a consistent population of Republican-leaning and Democrat-leaning voters is being revealed by the polls.

Over the past three months, the Web site has asked four specific questions about political issues at the national level.

1. "Should Congress confirm the nomination of Senator John Ashcroft for U.S. attorney general?" Result: Yes, 66 percent; No, 33 percent.

2. "Which presidential candidate has the moral high ground in the election controversy?" Result: Bush, 63 percent; other responses, 37 percent.

3. "Should the manual recounts conducted in Florida past the deadline be included in the final tally?" Yes, 28 percent; No, 72 percent.

3. "Should the United States eliminate the Electoral College?" Result: Yes, 42 percent; No, 58 percent.

While the fourth question does not translate cleanly into party politics, if it weren't for the Electoral College in this most recent election, George Bush would not now be president. So it's likely that more pro-Bush voters would have expressed support for the legitimacy of the Electoral College, especially during the politically charged times immediately after the election.

Thus, it appears that those answering poll questions on semissourian.com have tended to lean towards the GOP perspective on national issues in an intensity range of 58-72 percent. This is more pro-Republican than the rest of the country. But how does it stack up against other data about Cape Girardeau County, where the heaviest users of the site live?

A quick look at election 2000 is revealing. According to the Cape Girardeau County clerk's Web site, a similar 58-72 percent pro-Republican intensity displayed itself in the various election votes.

*461 percent of county voters who voted a straight-line party ticket voted Republican; 38 percent voted Democratic.

* 66 percent of all voters voted Bush/Cheney; 31 percent Gore/Lieberman.

* In statewide races, the intensity of the Republican vote ranged from 58-64 percent (the lone exception being the race for attorney general, where Democrat Jay Nixon held the Republican Sam Jones to 50 percent).

* In the U.S. representative's race, Republican Jo Ann Emerson garnered 72 percent of the vote.

From these numbers it is clear that the users of the site reflect fairly well the general political leaning of the area. In other words, users of semissourian.com don't seem to lean toward Republican or Democrat issues any more than the population base of the area. Note: It is important to point out that the polls, like the election results, do not indicate the actual party affiliation of the voters. Rather, the statistics merely suggest that there are sampling results on the Web site consistent with the recent voting pattern of the county.

Again, if you have any suggestions for future poll questions, please e-mail them to me. This week's questions are: "What domestic issue should President Bush make his top priority?" "Who is the best prep boys' basketball coach in the area?"

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I had the pleasure of serving on a panel of media executives last week to talk with students in the Cape Girardeau Leadership Academy. These high school students were a dynamic group: curious and confident. Few were bashful about giving their opinions about TV, radio, newspaper and the Internet.

A comment made by several in the group when seeing the semissourian.com Web site in action was: "Wow. If I had known this was here, I'd be going to it every day." What caught their attention in particular were all the photos and stories about friends and classmates, often in the sports area of the site. It was rewarding for me to see them buzzing about semissourian. com and to hear the stories from those who already used the site. But the episode underlined that semissourian.com needed to do a better job of promoting its content.

One of the items that could be better explained on the site is the semissourian.com Search function. Not only does this feature look for stories from the current newspaper, but it searches back through a 30-day archive of stories that appeared on the site. Thus, if you missed a story in the previous day's paper, you can find it online.

The site also organizes mini-archives by theme area. For example, if you are interested in stories about Southeast Missouri State University and other college-related issues, you can navigate to Today's News, then click on the SEMO/College button. There you'll find all the stories about the university from the past week. The same is true for a dozen other subcategories, including religion and health.

The community calendar remains another area of the site that always amazes people when they see it. Simply, this area of the site belongs to the community. If you want to add a calendar event to the site, you can do so. Just click on the word Calendar on the top horizontal navigation bar on nearly every page. Then, list the events of the next month by interest area. Or, add your own listing by clicking on "Add Event."

We unveiled the new semissourian.com in October, and the response has been tremendous. Traffic hits continue to explode by the hundreds of thousands each week, page views by the tens of thousands. But we continue to refine and improve. Next week I'll share with you some of the new features in the works. I'll also point out some of the new advertisers on the site. Many of them are conducting interesting and exciting initiatives on the Internet, as well.

Jon K. Rust is director of the semissourian.com MediaLab and vice president of Rust Communications.